The third quote in the video was actually taken out of context and therefore incorrectly translated. In the show, the word 精神 refers to (body) energy, not spirits (ideals). Dayo meant to say that HKers so hard in a prospering economy that people were constantly tired and lacked the attention span to appreciate art and culture. Just ignore it.

Nonetheless, I believe Mr. Siu made the mistake because we all subconsciously agree that the core values of Hongkongers is the lack of thereof, which the stand up comedian Dayo Wong also mentioned in his (supposedly) last standup comedy show. In fact, I’m proud of it: it simply means even the average HK people aren’t too stupid (see Dilbert and Rick and Morty and ye shall comprehend: values are for stupid people who cannot reason through the purpose of their actions)

This is a quote from House MD. It succinctly explained my entire viewpoint of everything so far with un-contradicted accuracy.

With this concise wording, I don’t have to explain to people why I don’t want any romantic relationships, why I think the concept of family is toxic, and why I consider love as a vestigial trait from evolution that we’re are abusing to mislead people to do our bidding and not pay them fairly. Now they can work out these conclusions by simply reasoning from “Everything is conditional. We just don’t know what the conditions are .” Neat!

While servicing a TDS 754A for a client, I smelled burnt electrolyte near the power supply section. Although it isn’t the cause of the problem yet, I know it’s a ticking time bomb.

By comparing the good power supply from my TDS 784A (same base design), I saw one of the leads of a higher power diode looks corroded (black stuff) yet the same diode on the good power supply has rainbow discoloration. It suggested that the assembly of the same part number is likely to fail by poor design (must be heating too close to the capacitor). Here’s the comparison of the C49 that caught my attention:

TDS 754A (Bad for sure)

TDS 784A (Slightly better. Less obvious leak)

And after removing C49 on TDS 754A, it’s clearly this capacitor has leaked and corroded one of the diode’s lead nearby:

By taking a closer look, I noticed a bit of stains around most 2700uF 10V Nichicon capacitors. Only C86 and C30 haven’t leaked yet. Might as well replace them all since there are 8 of them and 6 of them leaked.

C85 has green stuff all over it and smelled horrible. Surprisingly the ESR and capacitance is still within specs. That’s why the unit still functions. It’s just a matter of time before the power supply blows up and take out the commonly known transistors with it if I had left it there:

C47 and C48 is a mess:

C43 doesn’t look too bad, but it actually leaked. The clear fluid there is not flux, and the diode leads nearby stained for a reason:

C29 and C26 leaked as well:

C29 C26 leak PCB

C29 C26 leak Caps

C30 near them is clean though, the one out of two survivors:

Despite I haven’t seen leak residue on the PCB for the 680uF 35V, they are located close to high heat areas so I desoldered them to take a look. Turns out C21 cracked,

C21

C21 Cracked

C44 leaked a little, C42 is intact (it’s just flux):

C44 (Top) C42 (Bottom)

C44 (Top) C42 (Bottom)

All 680uF there are Marron capacitors.

So basically, I couldn’t trust the caps anymore and I desoldered the rest to check for leaks. Some of the Matsushita / Panasonic branded tinier capacitors far from heat sources survived. The 100uF 25V capacitor (Matsushita) at C33 near the heatsink also leaked, but it’s not too visible until I see the corroded pads after desoldering it.

I took out the last Nichicon there, a smaller 47uF 80V at C17, despite I don’t see any visible leaks before I desolder it. Glad that I did. It clearly leaked (can see it by looking at the bottom of the extracted capacitor), but not outside the capacitor’s casing’s diameter:

C14 Leak PCB

C14 Leak Capacitor

To avoid troubleshooting nightmare (uncommon problems) in the future, replace ALL electrolytics on the power board regardless of whether they are good or not given the majority of the capacitors leaked in this example. If you leave one or two old capacitors there and they leaked in the future, it’d be an uncommon problem that you can’t get any advice anywhere since nobody serviced the unit the same way as you did.

To be fair, Tektronix didn’t make this 400W power supply, Zytec did:

I used to think that the TDS 700 series doesn’t need much work because the SMD aluminum electrolytic capacitors on the acquisition board. But now I can see that anything that’s electrolytic leaks (CRT driver, power supplies, front-panel keypad, RS-232/Centronics board, processor board) in this TDS 500~700 series.

Nonetheless, it’s still a positive trait that there are no electrolytics on the TDS 700 series acquisition board, as it’s the most expensive and fragile piece. Acquisition board with leaked electrolytes is toasted (beyond economic repair) if you leave the electrolyte there too long.

Do NOT buy TDS 300~800 series off used market if you do not have to (like you have automation written for it or you’ve used it for 20 years and it’s all ingrained in your head) no matter how cheap they are (or SEEMINGLY working). The money is much better spent on HP 54520/54540 series if you are on a very tight budget. TDS 300~700 series don’t have much usable life left unless it’s verified new-old-stock. All fixes to TDS 300~700 problems are are laborious, frustrating and expensive.

It’s the same things that breaks for the same reason (unreliable design). That means if you simply swap modules with another used unit, or buy another identical unit, you are going to run into problems one way or the other in a short amount of time. Basically, you are only squeezing the last few puffs off a disposed cigarette butt.

I have built the knowledge and parts to rebuild these congenitally sick puppies, but as I discovered the number of common problems are still growing strong, I’m staying out of the market for it and sell whatever I have left (I’ll strengthen them before selling, of course).

If you absolutely have to rebuild a TDS 300~800 series oscilloscope and are willing to spend good money on it, which is typically the case if you:

have an automated system written for it that you need an exact replacement

have used the unit for 20+ years that you’d willing to pay to not painfully relearn.

do not want to change the procedures in a bureaucratic environment

I have the parts and knowledge to extend the unit’s life that you cannot find anywhere else. It’s super involved, but I’d be willing to help if I’m the last resort.

If you choose to send me a unit for rebuild to extend its life, I’ll make it mandatory to replace electrolytics capacitors in these boards:

because electrolytic capacitor failures cause symptoms that are very hard to troubleshoot (most of those are power rail capacitors, which if they fail, unstable voltages gives unpredictable erratic behavior).

The following is optional and billed separately:

New CRT tube for color CRT screens. I have six units left so far. First come, first served.
Tuning the tube to match the CRT board is very labor intensive.

Rebuild attenuator hybrid (they are consumables)

Troubleshoot/repair existing known symptoms

I give 3 years warranty for the repairs or preventative service I’ve carried out and it’s not user inflicted damage after the repair (like feeding high voltage to the inputs).

Call me at 949-682-8145 if you are truly need to rebuild a TDS 500~700 model and is willing to pay good money for it.

TDS 500~700 series uses common base design depending on when is the time range the model is produced, so the model number itself doesn’t tell you much about commonalities. For example, TDS 520 is common with 540, 620, 640 because they are all the first generation produced by SONY. Their main PCBs assemblies are significantly different from later ones like TDS 540A (Note the ‘A’). They don’t even use NVRAM chips with the same pin-out.

Yet TDS 540B is very different from 540A as it has InstaVu and no SMD aluminum electrolytic capacitors. It’s another generation. Yet even more confusing is that ‘A’ and ‘B’ does not represent different generations across the board. It only ties to the generation associated with the base model number. For example, TDS 500B, 600B and 700A has the same basis (and therefore the same service manual).

So far, service manual is the sure-fire way to tell what models shares the same design. They only removed a few components and ID resistors to make a lower-end version for market differentiation. The prices are no longer consistent in the used market, so sometimes it might be possible just to takes parts from a higher end unit and downgrade it with resistor ID for repairs. TDS boards is ‘adjusted’ before they ship, and has more mechanisms (like bandwidth-limiting resistors), so a lot more work is involved if you want to move up. I heard from forums that if you try to turn a monochrome processor board into color processor board, you’ll have to install extra chips and components.

Louis Rossmann tored a fake Hakko soldering station down and was stunned to see the IC leads not trimmed, a clear sign of lousy manufacturing.

I noticed the long pins of through-hole a crystal oscillator on a 54810-66501 acquisition board, coming from a well-made Agilent/HP 54810A/54815A/54820A/54825A oscilloscope (I know people complained about these oscilloscopes, but most of the failures is in the computer section, not on the acquisition board side. I know the computer section very well, so no problem for me.)

I have a few worn attenuators and one that I received that was fried by high voltage and I tried to swap the relays. Turns out it’s not really about swapping the coil, but a near impossible precision task if you want to swap the entire block without opening up the contacts and magnet gliders. If you desolder the coil pins, you can release them and expose the inner workings:

Usually the relay coil is not the problem. It’s either the magnetic shuttle (the black stuff between the two coils) that’s not moving smoothly or the contact metal spring does not naturally bend to make good contact anymore. I fixed the first one with WD-40 (the magnet glides on a custom plastic rail), so some vertical divisions that used to be capacitively coupled (i.e. there’s an air gap instead of good electrical contact) were fixed, but it still won’t pass calibration because of the worn metal spring. Here is what the spring(s) looks like:

Spring (top)

Spring (side)

Spring (bottom)

To put the motor coils back, I slightly push it down to the board while guiding the shuttle (that has a tiny piece of magnet in it) with a strong magnet outside the coil housing. It will fall in place easily.

Given how reasonable watronics (Bill Watry) is charging for the attenuators, it’s not worth the time, effort, and uncertainty trying to perform the surgery. He basically serves any HP/Agilent instruments that uses this attenuator hybrid that looks like this.

Bill Watry is a veteran of the 54500 series, which is the main consumer of this kind of hybrids. He’s the first person to talk to if you have any problem with HP 54500 series oscilloscopes. Please contact him directly rather than through eBay if you can, as eBay charges hefty fees (it eats up 13% of the transaction amount, not what he earned after costs).

54610B/54615B/54616B/54616C as well as first generation Infiniium uses this kind of attenuator too. I have everything needed to service 54615B/54616B/54616C except attenuators. If it boils down to attenuators, I don’t stock them and you’ll have to order it from Bill (I can do that on your behalf if I’m the one doing the repairs).

If you have an HP Infinium or Agilent Infiniium and your situation likely involves the computer section, I should be the first person to talk to, since I got nearly all the nasty quirks down over the last decade so you don’t have to spend months navigating through this minefield. The learning curve is really steep if anybody tries to figure it out on their own for the first time.

I recently bought a 1lb grab-bag of logic analyzer grabbers, predominantly Agilent grabbers. There are HP, Tektronix, EZ-Hook, ZeroPlus, Rigol and Hantek as well, plus a few random pieces like ground leads and micro-test (hook) clips.

The EZ-Hook grabbers looks very suspiciously identical to Agilent/HP grabbers, so I looked it up to see if there are rumors about EZ-Hook OEM-ing for them. In the process, I found this very useful website that tells you almost everything you can find about logic grabbers produced: